In recent years, as one of the methods for synthesizing liquid fuel from natural gas, the GTL (Gas-to-Liquid: liquid fuel synthesis) technique has been developed. In the GTL technique, natural gas is reformed to produce synthesis gas having carbon monoxide gas (CO) and hydrogen gas (H2) as main components, hydrocarbons are synthesized using a catalyst by the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis reaction (hereinafter, referred to as “FT synthesis reaction”) with the synthesis gas as a feedstock gas, and the hydrocarbons are hydrogenated and refined to produce liquid fuel products, such as naphtha (raw gasoline), kerosene, gas oil, and wax.
In hydrocarbon synthesis reaction apparatuses used for this GTL technique, hydrocarbons are synthesized by performing the FT synthesis reaction on the carbon monoxide gas and the hydrogen gas in the synthesis gas inside a reaction vessel in which a slurry having solid catalyst particles (for example, a cobalt catalyst or the like) suspended in a medium liquid (for example, a liquid hydrocarbon compound or the like) is held.
In this type of hydrocarbon synthesis reaction apparatus, in order to deliver the liquid hydrocarbon compound produced by the FT synthesis reaction to the outside of the reaction vessel, the liquid hydrocarbon compound and catalyst particles are separated by a filter installed in the reaction vessel, and the separated liquid hydrocarbon compound is delivered to the outside of the reaction vessel (for example, refer to the following PTL 1).